We need to capitalize on the energy following last night’s “We Will Not Conform” event. Let’s work together to strategize and organize to kick Common Core and all it’s entanglements to the curb! In the comment section below post your ideas on how to take action now and organize locally. Here are some ideas to start:

Make T-shirts

Yard Signs

T-shirt design contest

Hold an organizing convention

Organize by District

Radio Ads

Comments will only be approved if they’re positive, constructive, and don’t involve name calling.

Please sign this petition immediately and share this with your friends and neighbors.

Partisan Elections Petition

Utah citizens only

In support of partisan elections

We, the undersigned, support SB 104, Education Elections and Reporting Amendments, which uses partisan elections to vet candidates and allow locally elected delegates to narrow the voting field of candidates who appear on the ballot. Partisan elections are used with great success in all other major elections in Utah and it makes perfect sense to allow the same process to function in large scale elections for school board members. The Salt Lake Tribune editorial of 10-30-2014 stated that there is no reason to come up with a new method of electing school board members. They stated:

"Actually, they don't need to invent a thing. All they have to do use the same system we use to choose other state office holders. The process that is good enough to elect governors, attorneys general and members of the Legislature... People who want to be on the state school board should go through the same process as people who want to serve in the Legislature... It's good enough for legislators. It should be good enough for school board members."

The current system is broken. It guarantees that a single political party comprised of the UEA, USBA, and other educator organizations, dominate the election of the people on school boards.

Other facts

Locally elected delegates vet candidates most effectively

Increased transparency by highly effective caucus delegates

Lower cost to run for office

More people engaged in the issues important to education

Board members still represent all the people, just like you represent all your constituents

Partisan elections are constitutional

Party affiliation just lets you know where their core principles stand

Not passing SB 104 would be hypocritical since it is the same system used to elect you

I further request that no bill be passed that involves empowering the governor to appoint board members. The 15 state school board members have control of half of the state's budget. Empowering them to be appointed by the governor instead of through the caucus system that has produced the "best managed state" in the union would be folly and give too much power to one individual.

First name
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Last name
*

Street address
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City
*

State

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For further information on why partisan elections are the best system for vetting candidates, please see these resources:

You thought No Child Left Behind was bad… Just wait till the feds “fix” the problem they created in the first place. Here comes the 600 page HB 5, the Student Success Act. What a nightmare. The intro to the bill states:

“To support State and local accountability for public education, protect State and local authority, inform parents of the performance of their children’s schools, and for other purposes.”

After you read the information below, you’re going to need to immediately email and call your state representative and urge him/her to oppose this bill. Here are their contact pages (Utah reps only. Other states go here: https://www.congress.gov/contact-us).

Please do this Monday morning. They will most likely be voting on this in the next couple days.

“STATES TO RETAIN RIGHTS AND AUTHORITIES THEY DO NOT EXPRESSLY WAIVE” –How will a state “expressly waive” its authorities and rights? –Answer from the bill: simply by having a state legislature accept federal money.

A state that acts “inconsistently with any requirement that might be imposed by the Secretary as a conditionof receiving that assistance” will waive its authority because the legislature of that state would have “expressly approved that [federal] program”. If a state’s or a parent’s rights conflicted with a requirement, too bad: the federal bill claims authority to enforce obedience from states because the states take the money.

Read: “…nor shall any authority of a State have any obligation to obey… unless the legislature…. approved that program and in so doing, have waived the state’s rights and authorities to act inconsistently with any requirement that might be imposed by the Secretary...” So states have no obligation to obey unless they approved federally promoted programs (which the states have done in multiple ways).

As Ann Marie Banfield wrote: “What is going on here? The Secretary of Education can’t enforce any requirements under the program that would violate states’ rights UNLESS the state legislature gives its consent to participate in the ESEA, which encompasses around $25 Billion in aid to states. Essentially, participating in the program to receive funds requires states to waive their states’ rights and those of the parent over their child if they conflict with ANY requirements of the program.”

2. FEDERAL TAKEOVER OF PARENTAL RIGHTS

On page 567, Section 6564, we read that “…Other than the terms and conditions expressly approved by State law under the terms of this subpart, control over public education and parental rights to control the education of their children are vested exclusively within the autonomous zone of independent authority reserved to the states and individual Americans by the United States Constitution, other than the Federal Government’s undiminishable obligation to enforce minimum Federal standards of equal protection and due process.”

By tying inalienable parental rights to the receipt of funds and federal “obligations,” the bill just claimed authority to take parental rights away, under conditions it has just defined.

Even in the statement of purpose on page 11, the bill minimizes parents and maximizes itself, by “affording parents substantial and meaningful opportunities to participate in the education of their children”.

To reduce parents to a recipient of government-granted “opportunities to participate in” the education of a child is de-parenting. It’s far, far different from Utah’s legal code, which states in multiple places that: “A student’s parent or guardian is the primary person responsible for the education of the student, and the state is in a secondary and supportive role to the parent or guardian.”

3. GOVERNMENT CONTROL IN PRIVATE AND RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS – NEUTRALIZATION OF RELIGION

Read pages 78-82. It mandates that privateschools: “ensure that teachers and families of the children participate, on an equitable basis, in services and activities…SECULAR, NEUTRAL, NONIDEOLOGICAL.—Such educational services or other benefits, including materials and equipment, shall be secular, neutral and nonideological.”

What’s a private Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Baptist, or any other private religious school to do? –Alter its beliefs to match mandates for altered materials, equipment and services?

This is the price we pay for “school choice” and “backpack funding,” folks. It’s not what they make it out to be. Where federal money goes, federal chokeholds follow.

The federal government has no right to mandate that private schools must give services that are secular and non-religious. (See page 79: it includes in its definition of services: one on one counseling, mentoring, educational television, computer technology and more).

4. GOVERNMENT APPOINTED MONITORS FOR PRIVATE SCHOOLS

An ombudsman, if you haven’t heard the term, is a paid position, a role in which a person investigates and mediates official complaints for a living. This bill mandates that private schools will be assigned a state-appointed ombudsman to monitor private schools: “The State educational agency involved shall designate an ombudsman to monitor and enforce the requirements.”

On page 82 the bill states that the LEA (school district) must consult with private school officials and must transmit results of their “agreement” to a state-appointed ombudsman. On page 86 the federal bill allows a private school to complain to the government: “private school official shall have the right to file a complaint with the State educational agency that the local educational agency did not engage in consultation that was meaningful and timely”. These are private schools. They never, ever have had any legal mandate to report to, complain to, speak to, or even think about state or federal governments. These are private schools; private means not public, not under government mandates.

5. FEDERAL TAKEOVER OF PRIVATE SCHOOL FUNDING AND BENEFITS

On page 535, the bill slashes freedom by mandating equity for private and public schools. “Benefits provided under this section for private school children, teachers, and other educational personnel shall be equitable in comparison to services and other benefits for public school children, teachers, and other educational personnel”. The government has no right to command a private school to give more benefits, nor to withhold benefits, from private school teachers, staff or children. The same page states: “Expenditures for educational services and other benefits to eligible private school children, teachers, and other service personnel shall be equal to the expenditures for participating public school children.” The ombudsman’s job, according to page 80, is to “monitor and enforce” such “equity for private school children”.

Alean Hunt is a member of the SAGE parent review committee. She is quoted by the USOE as one of the members of this committee that completely supported SAGE. In fact, the USOE uses this statement from her as evidence that none of the parent review committee saw any problems with the SAGE test. She is quoted in this USOE flier as saying, “I didn’t see any real social problems with the test or things that would be controversial. [We] all feel comfortable with the test.”

Of course we know that is inaccurate and that several of the parent review committee members have publicly expressed concerns (link 1, link 2) but that hasn’t stopped the USOE from plowing ahead and using this statement and implying that SAGE is a better mousetrap.

Well, Alean has had a change of heart about the test. This letter from her expresses her concerns.

To whom it may concern:

For the last two years I have served on the SAGE parent review panel. I have been an outspoken, but concerned proponent of this assessment. I do support higher standards for our students. What I cannot and will not support are the following:

1: High Stakes, End of Level testing being given to students in Feb, like is happening this year. The teachers and scores will be graded on this score, but the year isn’t over.

There are still three months left!

When I called the USOE last Thursday and asked what scores this years end of level writing test would be compared to, this was their response, “We don’t know. We might give the test in February again, or March or maybe October. We haven’t decided yet, it is still up for discussion..”

Okay, so you may or may not compare this years 1/2 taught end of level high stakes test to last years end of level test or to next years end of level test that could be given at 3 very different times on the instructional calendar??? Yes, thanks for clearing that up!

2: IEP Accommodations are guaranteed by law! The USOE removes some of them during the testing of the SAGE for these students with special needs. And really why shouldn’t they? Just dealing with a disorder that qualifies you for an IEP such as autism, ADHD/ADD, anxiety, dyslexia, Aspergers, and processing disorders just to name a few are not difficult enough to navigate every single day! Why on earth would people in charge of doing what is best for the student actually want to do just that and ensure their rights as protected by law?!

IEP’s are followed as written by the experts of those children! The psychologist, the principal, the Special Ed teacher, the Speech teacher, the other team leaders such as occupational therapists and of course, the parents.

Everyone who has ever been involved with an IEP knows we meet frequently to evaluate these accommodations and compare and contrast student performance with them and tweak as necessary to give them the best chance at success they have, what USOE is doing to this process is in direct conflict with this.

3: I have had several opportunities to have face to face meetings with Glenna Gallow and others from USOE regarding the above mentioned items as well as the following two which are also related to special needs students. Every encounter I have had has left me with a sour taste in my mouth and the distinct feeling that these students do not matter.

First, SAGE scores will immediately appear on the screen at the end of the test with the exception of writing. Eventually writing will be this way too.

I take issue with this because of privacy, students will look at the computer screens of others. Students will pressure others to tell them their score. Students will feel pressured to tell their score even if they don’t want to. What if a student does poorly, but he did his absolute best work? He sees his poor score and knows he has to do this again for 3 more assessments? How hard will he try?

I have absolutely no problem with administrators & teachers getting the scores immediately and releasing the scores to parents, but I do not see the benefit to the score appearing on the computer screen, visible to students.

When this problem was brought up numerous times to USOE I was told I was the only one who considered it a problem. When my administrator/principal also expressed her frustration with it,(especially with regards to kids with special needs)she was told by a USOE staff member, “Those students are just going to have to get used to it.”

Second: SAGE is a computer adaptive test. This means that if a student answers a question correctly then the next question gets more difficult and vice versa also applies. However, if the student is taking 4th grade math because of a learning disability, but is in the 5th grade that child will be tested on 5th grade math. The test will not adapt below grade level. So this high stakes test that will impact school grading, future funding, & potentially merit pay for teachers is testing students on content they have not been taught because they are below grade level.

There is a federal statute that states we have to test kids at grade level, but it was before we had CAT testing and had the ability to actually test these special education students at their actual level. I believe this could be fixed under our waiver but again, I cannot seem to get anyone at USOE to care to take action towards reforming this very broken system..

4: SAGE was supposed to have enough writing in it that it was figuratively going to replace the

Ed. Note: JaKell Sullivan has put together an amazing document helping connect many of the dots between the big players involved in designing a national education system. One of the most important facts below is the Gordon Commission’s report stating that Common Core and its associated assessments are helping challenge the “deeply held belief in local control” of education. Thank you JaKell.

There are three parts to this document. The first is not too long and contains a summary, the second section goes deeper into more resources, and the third are links to other resources.

Utah’s Common Core Tests Are Entering the Next Federal Phase: Stealth, Embedded Assessment

Here’s what every parent should know RIGHT NOW about why you should Opt-Out of Common Core Tests AND aligned-online learning programs!

While Opt-Out of Common Core Testing campaigns are underway all around the country (and ought to be broadly supported by parents in a free society), Common Core’s testing “pilot” is coming to a close. The Federal objective was to use the pilot period of their Race to the Top Assessments Program to gather data on children, schools and districts and to train states on new technology systems—and set them up (and, yes, it was a real set-up) for what’s to come.

Now, Utah is ready to embrace the Next Generation of Assessments. Utah’s legislature is set to pass a bill this session to create a task force to get Utah out of SAGE testing, and a resolution to move us toward the fruition of the federal end-game.

What’s the federal end-game? It’s to get all states—and most importantly, all children in PK-12—using stealth, embedded assessments. These assessments are seamlessly woven into the fabric of the learning environment and are invisible to the user. Gaming companies have been using stealth assessment for quite some time, but they are relatively new to the PK-12 arena, and are now being federally funded.

The problem is that the federal government has colluded with global organizations who now have the power to, not only track untold amounts of data (personal information) on your children, but to use that data to control what and how your children learn through “personalized” learning platforms. And, the Feds want to assess much more than “did Johnny know how to add 2+2.” They want to measure what they call 21st Century competencies created by major multinational information technology corporations. These competencies include things like: environmental literacy (ie; does your child have the skills to understand that humans are causing climate change and that we need to solve this “real world” problem through population control?) and global citizenship (ie; does your child have the skills necessary to embrace global citizenship?). If you think this is a stretch, you haven’t gone to the Gates Foundation website lately, or heard him saying this to Germany’s largest newspaper last month, “We need a world government.”

So, what is the Federal Government doing with Bill Gates?

On May 12, 2012, IMS Global Learning Consortium and the SIF Association (the two leading organizations that create industry standards for technology) answered the U.S. Department of Education’s call to support the federal Race to the Top Assessment Program. The two organizations issued a Press Release which announced that they had created the “First Version of the Assessment Interoperabiity Framework” to Expand U.S. Collaboration in interoperable assessments—globally.

IMS Global announced, “IMS is very pleased that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is supporting acceleration of the open architecture for educational innovation that over 270 IMS member organizations around the world have made viable,” said Dr. Rob Abel, Chief Executive of IMS Global. “Achieving 1-click, data-rich connectivity of educational tools, content and apps with institutional systems is a game-changer that is now closer to reality via this grant and the anticipated ongoing collaboration with the [Gates] Foundation.”

When IMS Global says they are working with Gates to achieve “1-click, data-rich connectivity”, it means that they are about to use your child’s student ID like a social security number on steroids. As one friend who’s studied the data-gathering propensities of the federal government put it, “Imagine if anytime you used the internet you could be tracked by a number that not only was linked to your personal identity, but 100s of data points about you. And that most of that information was available to any website that agreed to use the same development standards.”

As mentioned above, 270 IMS member organizations around the world have already agreed to use the federal industry standards, and that number is quickly growing. What tech group, or nation, wants to be left out of the “new economy” being created by Bill Gates?

And, Utah wanted in on the action so much that they were part of the industry standard pilot! IMS Global announced, “To develop an industry standard for accessibility and interoperability of test items, [the] U.S. Department of Education helped fund the “Accessible Portable Item Profile” project. The Minnesota Department of Education led the effort, which included the states: New Hampshire, Vermont, Utah, Montana, Florida, South Carolina, and Maryland as participants and Michigan, Massachusetts, and North Carolina as observers.” APIP “allows for the transfer of assessment content between vendors.”

Question: Do parents have the fundamental right to know where their children’s curriculum and test questions are coming from? Do parents have the fundamental right to know that Utah is ready to help the federal government track our children into workforce tracks like socialized countries? Think the idea of workforce tracks being used in America is ludicrous?…see the Federal/Gates Learning Registries information below in the “more” section.

In May 2012, IMS Global and the SIF Association said that, as they had helped the federally funded SBAC and PARCC fulfill their federal interoperability requirements, they were helping to move states away from outmoded assessments and stood ready to “personalize instruction and leverage centralized professional development resources.”

From information I obtained, the Utah State Office of Education and other stakeholders were invited on a conference call with the Reform Support Network (a U.S. Department of Education network created to “help” states support all the reforms associated with Common Core standards) on Feb. 3, 2015 to aid Utah in the transition to stealth assessment. On the call, they were going to: “identify and eliminate assessments that are redundant or that do not contribute to teaching and learning” and to “identify the quality of assessments and move toward a better balance of question types.”

So, just three years after IMS and SIF’s said they were centralizing things, we see that our State Office of Education is coordinating with the Feds in the process of centralization. Learn more about the federal Assessment Interoperability Framework using Common Education Data Standards here.

What this means is that third parties, along with the federal government, can now control everything happening at the local school level as it pertains to learning—children’s learning and teachers’ learning. And, use that control to enforce almost any other federal reform or learning “intervention” required for children to be college and career ready.

Question: “Why do school districts, schools, teachers and parents, in a free society, willingly allow third parties to collect information about them and then tell them how to behave in order to meet federal mandates?” Doesn’t it appear that we are selling our children into a life of servitude and bondage all because we are unwilling to be self-reliant?

There is MUCH MORE to this article. For those that want to read it, see below. But, for now, suffice it to say, that the Feds have us right where they want us.

Utah parents DO NOT WANT SAGE, and we DO NOT WANT big-data-gathering-tech-companies, being funded by Bill Gates and the Feds, to replace (or morph) SAGE with real-time, adaptable assessments in learning technology. In order to preserve parental rights, parents should demand that our children’s tests be designed and controlled at the school and district level, so that tests are fully transparent to parents. After all, aren’t WE the consumers of educational services in this country? Aren’t we the sole stewards of our children? And, are we accountable to Government or to God in fulfillment of that stewardship?

STOP Utah’s legislature from creating a Task Force to further grow K-12 stealth assessments. (Contact your legislators and Task Force Sponsor Senator Howard Stephenson in DROVES and tell them “WE DO NOT WANT THIS FEDERALLY-MOTIVATED TASK FORCE IN UTAH!”

STOP Utah’s legislature from supporting a resolution to use K-12 stealth assessments. (Contact Utah’s House members and Resolution Sponsor Rep. Marie Poulson in DROVES and tell them “WE DO NOT WANT stealth assessments in Utah’s K-12 ed system without parental disclosure and opt-in requirements!”

HERE’S “MORE” INFORMATION AND RESOURCES, INCLUDING IMS GLOBAL GRAPHICS, FOR THOSE THAT WANT IT:

Stealth learning platforms and assessments (platforms and assessments that operate in real-time within the technology without a child knowing it) foster an education system where parents will have very little control over what our children learn and what they are tested on. Meta-data can be tracked through every key stroke, as well as facial expressions and behaviors through computer cameras, etc. And, the data collected from our children’s learning platforms will be used to control what and how their teachers teach, as well as what federal mandates will be placed on teachers and schools in order to make individual children “college and career ready.” (I used the word “make” because that’s exactly what the Feds are trying to do….force outcomes). The federal mandates will require “Response to Intervention” as well as redistribution of taxes and resources to aid centralization of our education system—and to profit the crony capitalists in bed with big government. (American Institutes for Research (AIR) controls Utah’s SAGE tests and is also in charge of the US Department of Education’s “Response to Intervention” program. So, whether SAGE exists or not, the data AIR collects through learning and assessment platforms will control what schools and teachers have to do to comply with federal mandates.

Here’s some background:

The US Department of Education, with funding funneled through the Education Testing Service, created the Gordon Commission to develop policy guidelines to help state legislatures change their education technology policies to align with Common Core Standards Metadata Requirements’—and to push states toward using stealth assessments.

(see Graphic #1 below)

Two key members of the Gordon Commission are President Obama’s former education policy advisor Linda Darling-Hammond, who was originally responsible for creating content specs for Common Core tests, and former governor Bob Wise. Bob Wise helped found Digital Learning Now with former Governor, and GOP Presidential candidate Jeb Bush. Digital Learning Now is profiting off of federal and state tech reform policies and Utah’s legislature is leading the charge in implementing all 10 of their digital learning policies.

The Gordon Commission published a report that said, “The Common Core Standards, and the rethinking of assessments that they are fostering, provide an opportunity to challenge [the] deeply held belief in local control.” Translation: “Parental rights mean nothing to us. We want to control what your children learn through stealth assessment and we are going to use your tax dollars to do it. Local boards will operate as subsidiaries of the Federal administration and eventually be regionalized so that we can further erode your local tax systems.”

The federal government funded the ConnectEd Initiative to replace textbooks within 5 years and simultaneously, the US Department of Education joined forces with IMS Global Learning Consortium and Bill Gates to fund open-coding specs for technology and learning companies. They used the Race to the Top Assessments program to get most tech and software companies to adopt open-free license coding specs that are interoperable across platforms—some nations have already adopted the specs.

IMS Global’s goal is to “Advance Learning Impact by Enabling the Open Foundation for Seamless, Agile and Information-Rich Educational Technology Integration.” Pearson wrote a Request for Information Response for the US Department of Education regarding which assessment programs the Feds should fund via Race to the Top Assessments (RTTA) to support this “seamless integration.” Their report states, “The RTTA program and state consortia adopting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have identified interoperability as essential in helping to maintain the feasibility and affordability of next-generation assessments.” It should be noted that Pearson plans to take over the United Nation’s PISA tests (tests that compare nations to each other) in 2018.

It should also be noted that the groups over Utah’s testing—American Institutes for Research and Bill Gates’ MeasuredProgress—have both adopted IMS Global’s interoperability specs, see member affiliate list here. (The USOE signed a contract with Bill Gates’ MeasuredProgress in 2009.)

IMS Global talks about a single student login like this:

“Achieving single sign-on and an overall seamless experience for students and teachers is a key foundational step for interoperable assessments across formative and summative environments….The open IMS platform of standards features the Learning Information Services (LIS) standard and Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) standard, both of which work in tandem with these federated identity solutions to enable single sign-on and reporting relative to specific individuals as required LIS and LTI focus on the data and service exchanges among cooperating learning related systems, such as assessment systems, learning management platforms, student systems, and learning tools.”

Page 37 of IMS Global’s report to the U.S. Department of Education entitled, “IMS Response to Assessment Standards RFI”, shows that they need Common Core standards to facilitate meta-data collection.

IMS Global is piloting an educational GPS system that operates just like the GPS on our phones and in our cars. It’s called EPS (yes, it’s meant to sound like GPS), or Educational Positioning System. IMS Global describes it like this, “As with a GPS system, there must be a way to compare the current position (student progress) with a starting point (past academic accomplishments) and destination (future educational goal).”

They published an online call to tech companies and encouraged them to become part of regional data clusters to begin pooling the data they collect so that it can be further centralized. In the call, they explain that “this EPS concept was put forth by StudentAlignment.com. President Obama released an Executive Letter from the Whitehouse which is posted on StudentAlignment or “EPS” Website. The President’s letter is entitled, “Unlocking the Power of Education Data For All Americans” and can be found here. Here is a student review of the EPS System and how it can create a student’s Learning Registry. President Obama’s letter highlights progress being made with the Learning Registry.

What’s the Learning Registry?

IMS Global’s website states, “the IMS Instructional Innovation through Interoperability Leadership Council (I3LC) of school districts and states has recently published a position paper that attempts to put some of the myriad projects and investments made in the last few years in the U.S. by the Gates Foundation into perspective. These initiatives include the Learning Registry (initially funded by the U.S. government, later by Gates), LRMI (Learning Resource Metadata Initiative) and SLC (Shared Learning Collaborative), now InBloom. These projects all share the notion that learning objects or progress can be referenced back to a common set of educational standards, and are generally complimentary, and perhaps even dependent upon success of the Common Core.” [note to reader: Although inBloom is defunct, IMS Global touts what they’ve done right and what inBloom did wrong].

So, lucky Utah, our Governor still thinks Common Core Standards have nothing to do with federal reforms, meanwhile, President Obama and internationalists are clearly using them to create Learning Registries on our children so that they will know what our children are learning and thinking at every step of the way through their education and beyond. Sounds exactly like the system needed to get our children into socialist-style workforce tracks. Ask yourselves again, “Why do Bill Gates’ kids attend a private school that does not use Common Core standards or aligned-assessments?” It seems obvious that we are creating a class system: some families will be workers and their tax dollars will be used to fund the companies of the elites who receive non-standardized educations.

Here’s a graphic from IMS Global about the US government/Gates Learning Registries. LOOK AT ALL THE DATA POINTS THAT CAN BE TIED TOGETHER FROM BIRTH TO WORKFORCE. It creates quite a profile on children and their families.

“APIP has been under evaluation by both SBAC and PARCC since December 2010. The recent SBAC architectural analysis has indicated a key role for APIP. PARCC is currently performing its architectural analysis. The U.S. Department of Education performed an extensive analysis of interoperability standards for assessment in early 2011 that highlighted APIP as a good fit for the needs of RTTA.”

“Q. What efforts have been under taken to build accessibility standards for assessment content? Recent technological advances and the growing importance of—and unique demands inherent in— assessment drove efforts to increase the accessibility of test content for all students, illustrated for example by the requirements for the U.S. Federal Department of Education’s (USED) Race to the Top Assessment Program. To develop an industry standard for accessibility and interoperability of test items, USED funded the Accessible Portable Item Protocol (APIP) project. The Minnesota Department of Education led the effort, which included the states: New Hampshire, Vermont, Utah, Montana, Florida, South Carolina, and Maryland as participants and Michigan, Massachusetts, and North Carolina as observers. National interoperability and accessibility experts provided technical support. In December 2010 the team released the first version of the APIP standard, intended to make assessment content portable between systems and accessible to a wide range of students.”

Page 11 and 12 of IMS Global’s Report to the US Department of Education reads:

“The conformance matrix shown at the above URL is also significant because it relates to the critical issue of supporting assessment interoperability throughout an “integrated system of instruction and assessment” which is required to support the balanced assessment requirements of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and achieve the potential of Race to the Top Assessments. In order to achieve use of interoperable assessments throughout formative, summative, and intervention strategies, interoperability must go beyond item and test interoperability. Diverse digital learning content and applications must provide interoperable results reporting that enables a diagnostic student record created from data that comes from a wide range of formative and summative tools. And, interventions must adapt based on the same interoperable data.

The range of interoperability requirements to support the Common Core and the Race to the Top Assessments projects are depicted in the following series of three figures.”

Here are the graphics from Page 11 and 12. It’s clear that there are a myriad of ways that embedded assessments can collect data on our children.

Conclusion:

Everything at the local school level will be controlled by third parties and international organizations using stealth assessments to centralize and synthesize data collection (I’ll leave the reader to surmise who).

Build data profiles on your children from preK-career (and into the workforce)

Send real-time feedback to teachers to control what learning “interventions” your child will undergo (making sure those interventions will pad the pockets of those crony companies in bed with the federal government)

Make it impossible for parents or local schools to understand who’s controlling the data that parents, teachers and local schools must comply with, and what kind of data is being collected

Potentially, and most-likely, push our children towards a globalist mindset where families, parents and individual rights are undermined so that children will support collectivist strategies for solving “real world” problems, ie; global government

“Digital Assessment Transformation: Get the latest on the rapid transition to digital assessment for both summative and formative purposes and theintegration of assessment systems and data with learning platforms. ”

“…better support for assistive technology and serving as an actual rendering format (versus just an interoperability format – which is what QTI is) for the range of devices supported via the web. They are calling this aQTI. Some long time contributors, such as Educational Testing Service, along with some newer IMS Global member organizations, like Dutch Exam Board, Cito, TAO, NWEA and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium are leading the way on all of this.” (So, Stealth assessment was the plan all along)

“…get to the next generation educational content interoperability. In less than one year we went from an exploratory meeting (hosted by Pearson) to an implementable draft specification”

“…defining and authorizing a more robust set of outcomes or achievements beyond grades”

SB 104 is the education elections and reporting amendments bill, also known as the “partisan elections” bill. Today the senate voted 21-7-1 on it’s second reading to pass it. I believe it’ll still have a third reading and another vote but those votes shouldn’t change significantly. It has been amended so that local districts only do partisan elections if the student population in the district exceeds 20,000.

In short, this is the only way to have school board elections be fair and transparent to the voting public. Otherwise we have the 1-party education establishment campaigning for their choice of candidate and telling everyone how it’s unfair that they have competition to who they deem the best candidate.

Today, the Utah School Boards Association (USBA) sent out an email to all school board members, superintendents, business officials and education leaders around the state giving them their talking points to oppose this bill. Here is their email with my comments in-between segments.

This bill will either create the need to make a Constitutional change or will create a lawsuit as Article X, Section 8 of the Utah Constitution indicates that “No religious or partisan test or qualification shall be required as a condition of employment, admission, or attendance in the state’s education systems.” This is read to include both state and local school board members. It appears clear that Utah’s founding leaders intended NOT to have partisan politics influence their public education system.

The public in Utah is not likely to make a Constitutional change related to partisan politics in public education oversight and governance.

This item is ridiculous. This is merely saying we can’t put a litmus test on a particular office such as “only Mormons or members of the Democratic Party can hold that position.” It’s why the Framers put similar language into the U.S. Constitution, which reads: “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Partisan elections ARE LEGAL and used in a majority of political races in Utah in order to closely vet candidates for office.

Local school board candidates are well known by their constituents, both in rural and in urban Utah. Local school board candidates often walk door to door to talk with each constituent. They do not need further vetting by a narrow group of party delegates.

Well known? A school board member runs every 4 years by putting up yard signs and walking the streets asking people to vote for him/her. Sometimes they pass out a flier with their talking points. Attendance at school board meetings is pathetic. Nobody is watching candidates and an extremely small number know anything about the candidates, even just their name! Vetting by a representative sample of every neighborhood in an area is both logical and logistical. When a neighborhood gets together at a caucus meeting and elects people to speak with candidates, they are picking people JUST LIKE THEMSELVES to go ask questions that get beyond the sound bites candidates deliver on fliers and their websites. This is grass roots involvement at its best.

Can you imagine a parent who wants non-partisan elections for school board members, actually spending even 15 minutes with each of 6 school board candidates to try and contact and vet each of them and make an intelligent vote in a primary race to reduce the field?It isn’t going to happen among the masses.

The bill creates a vacuum for many patrons of the district who may not be affiliated with a party. School board members will largely be held accountable to their delegates that elected them, leaving parents and taxpayers from other views to feel as if on the fringes. This is less representation, not more. School board members should be accountable to all members of the taxpaying public and all parents.

Depending on where one lives, there may be a majority of people from one political party. Other areas will flip that or be more balanced. Every party should run candidates that stand for their principles and the members of those parties should vet the candidates to see who has the best ideas so they put their very best candidate forward.

Party delegates are not viewed by the majority of Utahns as representative of their views on many matters, as has been shown most recently by the Count My Vote initiative.

The Buy My Vote initiative is hardly representative of an informed populace.

Delegates may or may not know much about their public schools. Volunteers and other school community leaders are often in public schools and are much more helpful in vetting candidates for local school board races. This undoubtedly holds true for state board candidates as well.

Dear USBA, delegates are our neighbors. They have families. They have children in school. They volunteer in schools. They are not from Mars or Venus. When someone is elected as a delegate, it’s a neighbor who we trust to make good decisions after weighing ALL the facts obtained from candidates and their opponents. This holds true for both local and state delegates.

Direct, nonpartisan school board races for local and state races, is already constitutional and restores the voice of the people to this electoral process.

NEWS FLASH: PARTISAN RACE ARE CONSTITUTIONAL. They actually get used quite often in Utah and it’s a big part of what made this the “best run state” in the nation. Non-partisan races never have, and never will “restore the voice of the people.” They are the races that special interests dominate because there is nobody to vet the candidates so their money goes to the “beauty contest” where whoever has the most advertising and “it’s for the children” sound bites wins with the help of the single-party education establishment. Through their channels, they get the word out through the school system as to who to vote for. Non-partisan races only work in small areas. Certainly not in areas where a candidate might not even live in your city.

For those who have further questions or concerns about partisan races, I invite you to read these pages:

ACTION ITEM UPDATE: Contact the Executive Appropriations Committee, your Legislators, Superintendents, and School Board members today to support a one-time non-educational allocation, $30 million, to allow for the cutting of Federal ties in Utah’s education.

Members of the State School Board are asking the Legislature for one-time set aside funds, $30 million. This allows the Board to say to the Federal Department of Education, Utah does not need an ESEA Flexibility Waiver and has the money to control our Title 1, tutoring, etc. funds. This restores Utah autonomy for our standards (Do we want Common Core?), teacher and school evaluations, data privacy for students, etc… Please ask the Legislature to support this measure today. Contact the Executive Appropriations Committee, listed below, your Superintendent, and State and School Board representatives, asking them to support these one-time funds, and cut the Federal ties. The Appropriations Committee meets Tuesday the 17th & Wednesday the 18th, to determine priority of expenditures.

Here is why:
In order to get out of some of the onerous provisions of No Child Left Behind, Utah accepted an ESEA Flexibility Waiver. The Waiver required (and the previous Race To The Top grant application incentivized) adoption of Common Core State Standards and Assessments, State Longitudinal Data System, & Teacher and School Accountability measures.

These requirements significantly limit Utah’s autonomy over education, but provide flexibility in program specific funding. A new application for a three-year ESEA Flexibility Waiver is due in March to the US Department of Education. If Utah renews the waiver we are tied to the above provisions for the next three years!

If we do not renew the waiver we would have more autonomy over our standards, data collection practices, school and teacher evaluations. The concern has been without the Waiver we would face a required sudden reallocation of funds. (We would not lose Federal funding, just some directive over how portions are to be used.) Therefore members of the State School Board are asking the State Legislature to provide funds in the amount of $30 million, one-time non-educational funds, in order to be prepared and offset these requirements.

This Tuesday and Wednesday the State Executive Appropriations Committee will meet in the Legislature to determine the expenditures for this year. These $30 million non-educational funds must be added to the appropriations. These funds give assurance of Utah’s budgetary preparation to members of the State Board of Education to not renew the waiver.

Please contact today the Executive Appropriations Committee members listed below. Let’s cut some Federal ties, and get one hand out from behind our back!

Senator Aaron Osmond has listened to a lot of parents this past year and the sometimes horrible situations schools have put their children in forcing them to take tests they were opted out of, lying to children and telling them it was the law and they had to take it, etc… With the recent USOE memo trying to tell parents what they could or couldn’t opt their children out of, this bill is a major relief to parents. Here’s the changes being made. You can find the full text here:

Words that have a line through them are being removed and if it’s underlined it’s being added.

(f) providing that scores on the tests and assessments required under Subsection (2)(a)
89 and Subsection (3) [shall] may not be considered in determining:90 (i) a student’s academic grade for the appropriate course [and]; or
91 (ii) whether a student [shall] may advance to the next grade level.

53A-15-1401.Definitions.
132 As used in this part:
133 (1) “Individualized Education Plan” or “IEP” means a written statement, for a student
134 with a disability, that is developed, reviewed, and revised in accordance with the Individuals
135 with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1400 et seq.

160 (2) An LEA shall reasonably accommodate a parent’s or guardian’s written request to
161 retain a student in kindergarten through grade 8 on grade level based on the student’s academic
162 ability or the student’s social, emotional, or physical maturity.
163 (3) An LEA shall reasonably accommodate a parent’s or guardian’s initial selection of a
164 teacher or request for a change of teacher.
165 (4) An LEA shall reasonably accommodate the request of a student’s parent or guardian
166 to visit and observe any class the student attends.
167 [(5) (a) An LEA shall reasonably accommodate a written request of a student’s parent
168 or guardian to excuse the student from attendance for a family event or visit to a health care
169 provider, without obtaining a note from the provider.]
170 [(b) An excused absence provided under Subsection (5)(a) does not diminish
171 expectations for the student’s academic performance.]
172 (5) Notwithstanding Chapter 11, Part 1, Compulsory Education Requirements, an LEA
173 shall record an excused absence for a scheduled family event or a scheduled proactive visit to a
174 health care provider if:
175 (a) the parent or guardian submits a written statement at least one school day before the
176 scheduled absence; and
177 (b) the student agrees to make up course work for school days missed for the scheduled
178 absence in accordance with LEA policy.

192 (9) (a) Upon [the] receipt of a written [request] statement of a student’s parent or
193 guardian, an LEA shall excuse the student from taking [a test that is administered statewide or
194 the National Assessment of Educational Progress.]:
195 (i) any summative, interim, or formative test that is not locally developed; or
196 (ii) any test that is federally mandated or mandated by the state under this title.
197 (b) An LEA may not:
198 (i) require a meeting as a condition of excusing a student from taking a test described
199 in Subsection (9)(a); or
200 (ii) specify the form of a written statement under Subsection (9)(a).
201 (c) A written statement to an LEA to excuse a student from taking a test under
202 Subsection (9)(a) remains in effect across multiple school years until:
203 (i) further notice from the student’s parent or guardian; or
204 (ii) the student is no longer enrolled at the LEA.
205 (d) An LEA may not reward a student for taking a test described in Subsection (9)(a).

217 (11) An LEA shall reasonably accommodate a parent’s or guardian’s request to include
218 in an Individualized Education Plan elements that the parent or guardian believes are in the best
219 interest of the child.

This comment was posted on Facebook by a retired teacher. It’s public but I haven’t contacted her to ask permission to post this so I’ve withheld her name.

This is insane. Every time the legislature (federal or state) puts “controls” in place, there are always intended and unintended consequences. In this case, there are some severe consequences as teachers begin to retire in droves. A huge part of the reason is Common Core and the mandates that have come with it, and NCLB.

Here’s the story:

**************

THE CONSEQUENCES OF BEING A TEACHER in an elementary school that received a C in the recently posted school grading system as required by the NCLB waiver:

Teachers as of two weeks ago, must submit weekly, detailed lesson plans including exactly what they will say. After the plans are submitted, the teachers must meet with the principal and two of the EBL (aka curriculum administrators) to review the plans ( actually according to my source, review translated means, “teacher and lesson plan ripped to shreds”). My source was chastised for not having the Pearson/Envision on line homework available to parents and because she wrote “same” on some of what she was going to say in her lessons.)

This must be done until these three administrators are satisfied with the content of the lesson plans. Also, a DETAILED schedule must be posted on the door or outside of the teacher’s room. If it is posted that they will be teaching spelling at 11:00 a.m., they had BETTER be teaching spelling at that exact time since there will regular monitoring. If a teachers fails to comply, they will be “written up” and labeled as insubordinate. Hmmm, the principals of these schools must have their neck on the chopping block also.

This is in addition to the requirements by the district: three detailed lesson plans and three videos of the teacher presenting a lesson to reviewed by the EBL administrators. Also two yearly IPOP evaluations ( principals or administrators can “pop” in at any time) where in a 30 minute period the teacher must show a lesson being presented to an entire class, a group working together, two children working together and one child working alone. Also they must state they they show complete fidelity to Pearson.

This is in addition to the countless hours they must spend entering data into the computer in order to document 80% mastery for each concept taught–1,872 entries required alone for 4th grade grammar concepts, etc. etc.

Four teachers at this school have said, “Enough is enough” and are leaving at the end of this school year.

Dr.Thompson has often stated that this is child abuse. This is also teacher abuse. My source, who is an outstanding and hardworking teacher, has a rash over her entire body from the stress.

*****************

One person on FB replied: “This sort of thing can produce a classic ‘death spiral.’ The government forces teachers to go through tons of red tape, which reduces the amount of time and energy that the teachers have for teaching, which reduces the quality of their students’ education, which results in more government-mandated red tape, etc.”

Exactly right.

Teachers all over the nation are retiring because they can’t take it anymore. Schools have turned into a pressure cooker in our maddening desire to “make sure our children can compete in a global environment.”

“I don’t think anyone understands that in this environment if your child cannot quickly grasp material, study like a robot and pass all of these tests, they will not survive.”

Many other teachers agree with her and the article quotes one as saying, ““We will give the last [Ohio Graduation Test] this year. I don’t know if I’m going to cry when we do, because what we are moving to is unbelievable,” he said.

As a state and within our communities, leaders have embraced the natural outcome of compulsory education. The wrong questions get asked and the answers to those questions reinforce the natural processes of the system.

WRONG QUESTIONS

If we are going to force children to school, what do we want their outcomes to be?

Hey Mr. Corporation? What are your needs? What jobs do you need filled?

How can we make sure every school is compliant and teaching exactly what they are supposed to according to national standards?

How do we make sure no child is left behind and that they are always progressing ON GRADE LEVEL?

RIGHT QUESTIONS (IMO)

How do we best meet the needs of each child according to their parents desires?

How can we help stimulate a love of learning in the children?

How do we help them achieve their dreams?

How can we give children more freedom to pursue their diverse interests instead of overloading them with what someone else wants for them?

How do we ensure children’s privacy and data are completely isolated from any outside interest?

*****

I believe legislators, USOE, USBE, schools and districts, need to back off the extreme testing and curriculum mandates. We can’t keep raising the temperature on the pressure cooker. We need to vent the air before more teachers and students give up and have breakdowns. This is not a healthy environment.

Parents, you may want to seriously look into dual-enrolling your child. In fact, I strongly recommend it. I’m doing it with one of my children right now. She takes a few classes at school, and a few at home. She’s MUCH happier, she’s doing things that interest her, and she’s able to go at her own pace. It’s a great way to go.

Parents may opt out of testing in Utah according to State Superintendent Brad Smith. “The most important legal policy….by constitution, and by what I consider to be natural rights, parents have the right to opt out of anything! They don’t need permission. They don’t need to fill out a form. They don’t need to seek someone else’s response. And, that’s an inherent and integral right of parents.”..“Sage is one of the tests in all of its components that was unambiguously covered by the safe harbor provisions of Section1403 9a. And so that is one that unambiguously there is an opt out provision….But if there’s a question about SAGE, I believe there is unanimity and no ambiguity that SAGE is absolutely something that is subject to..the safe harbor provisions of 1403-9a.”–State Superintendent Brad Smith on the Feb. 2, 2015 USOE memo which restricted things parents could opt their children out of.

If you would like to send Brad a thank you note and encourage him to continue to stand for parental rights, you may email him at brad.smith@schools.utah.gov.

Awesome news from legislators on SAGE tests. In this article from Ben Wood at the SL Tribune, “Utah lawmakers sour on SAGE test,” Ben shows the about face lawmakers like Senator Howard Stephenson have had on these tests. Several years ago Sen. Stephenson was pushing for computer adaptive tests. Now he’s quoted as saying:

“There will be legislation this year to create a task force to look at doing away with the SAGE test entirely,” Stephenson said during a Public Education Appropriation Subcommittee hearing. “I think we need to be looking at the whole issue of whether we should be having end-of-level tests.”

My favorite quote in the article is Rep. LaVar Christensen’s: “If you’re going in the wrong direction, you don’t step on the gas pedal.”

Also watch the powerful Common Core documentary movie which the Home School Legal Defense Association released. This 40 minute documentary gives you the inside story from the lips of those involved in the creation of Common Core.